Page 51 of Bella Rosa
I play with a stand of my hair. "I don't know. I do, but what if Matteo doesn't want me to stay? What if I stay and everything changes?"
She picks up a bread stick and points at me with it. "Are you crazy? That man is head over heels for you, girl."
I smile. "So what do I do?"
She sits up straighter in her seat. "Submit the article. Who knows, you might not even get the job. Then the decision will be made for you."
"But what if I do get the job?"
She leans forward and puts her elbows on the table. "Then you decide from there. If you don't submit it, you'll always wonder if you were capable or not."
I nod my head. "You're right. I would always wonder what if."
She moves the items around on the table to clean a space in front of me. "Submit it now."
I lean back in my seat, much more quickly than I intended. "What? I can't do it now."
"You said it was finished, right?"
I nod my head. "Well, yeah."
"Then there's nothing to wait on! If you don't do it now you'll overthink it for the rest of the weekend."
I nod my head. She has a point. I might as well do it and get it over with. I pull out my laptop from my bag and type up the email. I attach my article and one of my blog posts, and hit submit.
Matteo
I pull myself up onto the top of the wall and sit. That boulder kicked my ass. It's been way too long since I've done any kind of rock climbing. Lifting boxes at the restaurant apparently doesn't work the same muscles as rock climbing.
Luca pats my shoulder. "I knew you'd make it eventually." The fucker isn't even out of breath.
I lightly push on his shoulder before I lay back to catch my breath. "That was a V6 you ass."
"All I heard is you're mid level now. You used to be able to do V8's like they were nothing."
I laugh, still out of breath. "Yeah, three years ago when we used to do this every other day."
Most climbing gyms don't have tall enough ceilings for you to be able to sit on top of the walls. This new gym is nice, even if it is over an hour away from home. I wipe the chalk off my hands onto my pants and get my phone out of my pocket so I can check my notifications.
Luca laughs, "You checked your phone fifteen minutes ago. Rosalie is fine, man."
I slide my phone back in my pocket. "I know. I just want to make sure she doesn't need anything."
"What could she possibly need? I'm sure the girls are having a great time."
I lay back to stare at the ceiling. "I know. That doesn't keep me from worrying."
He lays back with me. Our feet slightly dangling off the edge. "She's changed you." I look over at my best friend, the person who knows me better than I know myself, and raise my eyebrows. He puts his hands up. "I'm not saying that's a bad thing."
I look back up at the ceiling and smile.
"She's good for you. I'm happy you found her."
"Me too."
32
Zipper
